


The Dark Side of The Moon

by bela013



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Destcember (Destiny), Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27825613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bela013/pseuds/bela013
Summary: One exo titan makes their way across Europa, and sees things better left buried in the snow.A Destcember 2020 fic.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Exodus

She sees the skiff leave orbit, and she thinks about crying. Would it be improper to relate to such a personal eliksni issue? Europa is fucking with her mind. It's almost as if she's stuck on a loop.

She sees the skiff leave orbit, and she thinks she is forgetting something. She should remember it, but she can't. Variks thanks her for helping his people find a new home with a new kell. Europa was a graveyard for her kind. A vile moon filled with corruption.

Her hand lights up with the solar power of an uncast grenade. She is sure she can see a desecrated exo buried into deep snow, limbs akimbo, non organic entrails spilled about. Her own non organic stomach turns at the sight.

She sees the skiff leave orbit, and she feels like she was left behind. There was no kell for the exos of yore. Her comms crackle with static. Variks asks her to move forward. And behind his voice, there is another voice. She closes her eyes briefly. She sees a tower, and a field of corpses.

She sees a ship leave orbit, and she knows she's inside. She killed the passengers. She tears apart the control panel. She sees the ship leave orbit. But it explodes soon after.

Her eyes open, and a deep yellow light tints the snow at her feet. She moves forward, driven by violence. Variks begs her to be quick. The snow around her melts.


	2. Thin Ice

There is a red shine to the thick ice around her. Eris and Drifter stand at the camp, she could hear their voices and the banging of pots from all the way where the snow gave way to ice.

She is confident in her safety on top of the thick ice. Dr. Bray stands a couple of feet away from her. And before she even begins to explain this power called Stasis, she asks once more not to be called that.

"Call me Elsie if you must" that sparks a sound of indignation from the camp, Drifter's ears are better than most.

"Apologies. Elsie." There was a full stop in her sentence. She did not intend to do so. But that name felt wrong in her mouth. "Please continue."

There is a clear difference between them. The face before her, was almost human like in their expressiveness. Her barely had anything other than the holes where eyes should me, and a metal gash for a mouth. Dr. Bray must've been a newer model. More expensive.

There was reticence in Dr. Bray's expressive eyes. She did not step into the deep ice with her. No matter that she was probably a head smaller than her own frame. And probably half the weight. Her own mouth opens, casting a yellow light on the one who refused to be called a doctor. The Dr. Bray of Mars always laughed when she called her so.

"Do not fear the ice, Dr. Bray."

"I remember it when it wasn't as thick. The thin ice of this lake could be seen from the satellite facility over that hill."

"Somehow, the reflection of Jupiter, made it almost blood red."

Dr. Bray turns to her then. A look in her face that was almost human. Was it fear or anger that she saw? She closes her mouth and bows her head in deference. She swears she can feel the ice at her feet crack. Her non human eyes close in fear. The ice beneath her feet is thin. Someone says her name, an order soon follow. She breaks the ice with the dull sound of a ripe watermelon.

Dr. Bray says her name. And she opens her eyes. Her voice is kind. And that only serves to make her angry enough to step away deeper into the frozen lake.

"Continue your explanation. Dr. Bray."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rather just post them as I write them, than leave it to a daily bases.


	3. Dearest Wish

An old acquaintance invites her to explore the Dreaming City. She politely declines and ends up receiving photos of crystals the whole day cycle. Her face plate moves into a smile that no one can see.

Her feet dangle above the behemoth construction that the vex had on the snow. It's like one of the many plants in the city, reaching for the sun.

The sun is truly beautiful in the Dreaming City. A sun that makes no sense for their own solar system. But beautiful. Specially when it shines on the corrupted tower that rises over the horizon in that impossible place.

A harpy screams inside the vex constructed cave, and it echoes across the snow wasteland. She smiles at the sound. Her old  _ friends _ , all awoken, are relentless in their pursuit to help that taken place. They wanted to belong, to connect.

She just wants to stay here forever.


	4. Eye for An Eye

She looks at the multitude of exo bodies at her feet. Why did their heads look so small? Why did they look human? Why did they die, and she didn't?

"The easy answer? You are too big to be torn apart by goblins and hobgoblins." Her ghost always knew what to say.

"And the hard answer?"

"You probably killed them." Their synthesized laughter echoes on this abandoned laboratory. Cruel little fucker. She couldn't believe Dr. Bray referred to them as 'Little Light'.

"Why do I look so different then? Why make me into a walking tank, and not as human as my peers?"

"Peers? As if any guardian before or after could compare to the one who first entered the Black Garden." their arrogance was comforting. She was used to their acid tone, their complete disregard of others that weren't them. "I knew you were the strongest, when I found you in that crashed ship. And I am yet to be proven wrong about you. Do not insult us both by claiming to have peers!"

She laughs at their speech. She loved her ghost. There is the picture of an exo on the wall, and a multitude of skulls with the same pattern, same design. When she picks up one of the exo skulls, it looks up to her with dead faded eyes. A noise builds up on her voice box. A static. Even dead, those eyes were more expressive than her purely functional ones. She crushes the skull in her hand, her own light creating enough heat to start to melt the sturdier metal structure that held it all together.

"That's the spirit!" Her ghost cheers in delight. "The pretty eyes of the blind mean nothing to us"


	5. Nightmare Before Dawn

In her dreams, there is no tower. There is only blood and gore. People scream as she goes through them with the same prejudice she applies to trawls. They scream much the same way. Her ghost, Iliad is not there. But a voice much like theirs whispers in her mind.

The voice is pointless. It tries to push her past a breaking point. But in her hands, there is just meat. They scream when they see her hulking frame. She truly darkens their doorstep. She grabs one by the neck, and they don't even make a sound.

It isn't a fight. It's a slaughter.

Other exos speak of the similar harrowing dreams, with pain, with shame. She feels neither. She feels empty.

There is no tower for her. Only a memory. She knows it's a memory. Something imprinted wherever exos keep their memories. It is all that was left of herself. No name, no designation. Just meat. And it isn't even her own.


	6. Triad

**Zero.**

There is a long shadow following Grandfather now. After the attempted attack he suffered in Venus, from some activists, he had grown a bit paranoid. More paranoid.

His acquired bodyguard was more akin to one of their projects than human. She has yet to see the woman's face move. Not even when she had to bridal carry Grandfather through the deep snow of their Europa station, did she express anything other than boredom.

Maybe that was the trick of dealing with Grandfather. Complete apathy and a disregard for human lives.

The bodyguard is a long shadow. One capable of reaching over Grandfather's head and stopping a punch from being thrown at him. Clovis Bray I's face was said to be very punchable.

The fist of the scientist who attempted the punch breaks so loudly, that she can hear from across the cafeteria. The bodyguard offers the crying scientist a docile smile, sweet as she offers them a helping hand.

It was better when she didn't try to play human. Less frightening.

**Zero. One.**

The exo comes online for the first time. Elsie doesn't want to be disturbed by it. Them.  _ Her _ . But it was proving almost impossible. The frame that was used was not like the others. It was hardly human. Eyes, mouth, arms, hands, and legs. The deep blue frame opened their eyes.  _ Her _ eyes. And then she screams.

The noise is incredibly loud. It is pure static.

The exo's size proves a problem. An assistant frame is torn apart with their bare hands.

Grandfather watches with the same interest he watched  _ her _ pull the arm of a person out of its socket.

They shouldn't have done it. They should have let it die. Let  _ her _ die.

Elsie turns away from the destruction the exo causes. The same way she turned away from the nearly bisect torso of Grandfather's bodyguard at the gate.

"Penelope." the screaming stops at Grandfather's voice. The exo's fist still closes around the head of a service frame. But then, they turn and stop. Their posture much like the one that Grandfather's bodyguard had.

They should have let that one particular monster die. Grandfather's hound had metal teeth now. And by the destruction in front of her. They knew how to use those teeth.

**Zero. One. Two.**

Elsie asks her to come. For old times sake. The woman did put her own body between Elsie's own, and an incoming attack from the Hydra.

"You have a place with us. Out of this damn place."

The exo smiles at her, and even with their inhuman expression, she feels the tenderness of that smile. It should have clued her in.

Elsie sends her to help the evacuation protocols. Someone tells her that she was on the leaving ship. Penelope-1 was what saved as many people as they did. All safe with her on the ship.

The comms are open with the ship. A parting message.

"Thank you, Penelope."

"I'm only following orders. Dr. Bray."

The comms are cut off. She sees a ship leave orbit. Penelope is inside. The ship never leaves orbit.

It burns in the sky like a dying sun.

**Zero. One. Two. Three.**

Elsie sees it on the wreckage of an emergency pod on Mars. A ghost approaches it with interest. She thinks about shooting it. Except there was no point.

The frame wails as it wakes up. The same warped sound from when it first woke up.

Elsie almost shoots them. And she would have, if it had ever hurt her or her sisters. But it never did. Never. No matter how many timelines she has seen. It was a Bray dog, to the very end. Dogs made for good guardians.   
  
  



	7. Beyond Stasis

"You must practice it, if you intend to master it."

"I don't intend to use it. Much less master it.

"Then why did you come to Europa?!"

"Dr. Bray called me." Elsie turns to look at the other exo. Her body spins so fast that she almost slips on the snow. The guardian's hand steady her. "You called me, Dr. Bray."

Elsie steps away from the guardian, and back towards the hut, where Drifter and Eris are once more having an argument/conversation while dinner is being made.

"You need to learn this. To understand the Stasis, lest you fall prey to its corruption." It had been a real long time since she spoke so softly with the exo in front of her.

"I don't need ice to understand darkness" the exo's eyes are pure yellow. Elsie could never stare at them for long.

"There is more beyond the light, guardian"

"And there is more beyond the darkness. Elsie."


	8. Tyrant

" _ This is where your Golden Age Kell built you, hmm? Trivial tinkering, I will elevate it… _ "*

That puts a stop to her hunt for Praksis. She just stops. A frozen chasm lays before her, and Variks talks about this being the ruin of her civilization. But none of that matter.

Kell.

What she knows of Kells, is that they're technology obsessed warlords, willing to damn themselves and their subordinates for one step closer to power and the great machine.

Maybe she got it wrong. But this vision of Kell is what burns her chest and makes her almost feel like a beating heart is in it, and it's close to cardiac arrest.

Iliad leaves their hiding place on her armor to look at her. The giant cave is flooded with the yellow light of her eyes. She didn't think she had ventilators inside her, but it's almost as if a turbine kicks in inside her chest.

Kell.

Her Kell.

A tyrant. A warlord. A machine obscessed fool. A  _ god _ .

Kell of Kells.

She could almost see it, see them. She could almost remember. The image of a thousand exo heads stare her down. All as white as bone.

A whirl sound starts and it's as gone as fast as it started.

Pen-3 crosses the chasm and not once does she notice that this is the first time she thought of herself as anything other than Guardian. The name Penelope crosses her mind with great speed. But she ignores it in favor of the hunt for Praksis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *an actual dialogue line from Praksis when you're an exo guardian


	9. Blooming Gardens

The great snowy plains of Europa. Beautiful. The heavy snow crunches beneath her feet as she makes her way to the little hut, Dr. Bray and associates gathered to scream about stasis and sometimes dinner.

Slowly, she unloads her sparrow and brings in the little pressurized vats she found around Europa. Inside it, a lush green.

Pen-3 smiles at the plants. Actually smiles. Her ghost, indulgent as ever, is yet to comment on her new found name, but they don't spare comments about her need to collect the little green fellows.

Dr. Bray, Elsie, looks up from a terminal. She is alone today, which made her both more open and reticent around her.

"Are you trying to take over my lab with all this junk you found in this ice cube?" Dr. Bray doesn't like her smile, so Pen-3 schools her facial plates into a neutral expression.

"Until I find the botanical garden which they come from, yes." such defiance and invasion of space seems to make Elsie smile at her. Pen-3 wasn't sure why. Maybe, Dr. Bray was used to it, after weeks of having to deal with Drifter and Eris at the same time.


	10. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Blood, vomit (just to be safe), open chest surgery.

Someone is coughing, and that simple action is enough to tire them. Their smaller body slumps down and she is quick to hoist them by their waist, and gently kneel at the floor so they could sit down, and try to catch their breath. They weeze, and it's only when they tap her arm, that she lets go and turns them around to face her.

Paper thin skin, stretched over tired bones. Blood dribbles down their mouth almost freely, like spit out of a toddler's mouth. They open their mouth to speak, but only manage to spray her face with the red liquid. Their blood was almost cold against her skin.

Her skin. Her very human skin.

Fascinated by the fact, she reaches for her companion's face, and traces the sharp angles of their face. They try to slap her hands away, but end up grabbing at her wrist.

"Focus" they rasp in a familiar and yet strange voice.

She rises off the floor, taking her companion in her arms with ease. Their body was much too light.

Her steps echo in the empty corridors of the private lab that was reserved only for them. 

Her companion's mouth is exactly against her neck, as she bridal carries them to their final destination, the last chamber in the subterranean base. She pretends not to listen to their pitiful crying as the pain spikes up. She pretends she doesn't feel chapped lips kiss at her jugular. If they had been stronger, she would have feared such touch, solely because she wouldn't put it pass them to try and drink her blood to somehow absorb her strength.

At the crypt like laboratory, she approaches a skiff like contraption, that hisses as it opens. Her companion's body is so small in that pod, that she does the unthinkable and leans down towards them.

She kisses him. Because she can. Because she likes fragile things. Because even dogs are allowed to love the ones who hold their leash. She tongues his mouth and he allows her to. She feels a hand at her hair, nails at her scalp. He probably intends to yank her hair, but to her is all but a playful tug.

Penelope leans over the opening of the preservation chamber and licks at the corner of Clovis Bray's mouth. She tastes the blood, before she places one last tender kiss at his lips.

She closes the lid of the chamber, and knows there will be hell to pay once he was properly in one place once more. But now, she savors the taste of his blood in her mouth, and waits for the procedure to be over.

The preservation chamber is attached to the sterile environment for his surgery. She is present for the whole thing. She watches as each organ is replaced by a new one. At last, they remove his old heart, and quickly put in the new. Her hand moves as if to grab the old sick heart, through the clear walls of the operation room.

Pen-3 wakes up inside the shipping container she picked to spend the night. Cold and confused. Her hand at her chest, as if trying to grab her own heart that isn't there. She could almost taste the blood in her mouth. She only wished she could remember her dreams as well as she remembers the one at the tower.


	11. Heresy

She wasn't a believer. She never believed in anything really. Maybe that's why a stranger finds her and guides her to a dark garden. It all sounds like a lie. A fantasy for children.

Iliad tells her of such tales. Her ghost had spent many years with the cryptarcs before they found her. They were fond of great epics. Odysseys.

She remembered the garden. The black heart in its center. She did not believe in it, even as she tore it apart with her hands.

In that garden, she sees a tower. A tower reflected in every vex's eye.

After that, she kindly disappears. She was a follower. A doer. She was a titan, and she, unlike the other guardians who craved raw power, obeyed the Vanguard, and the titan commander.

She drowns herself in work. And her name gets buried in history. She did not kill a god. She just shot something by herself in a garden somewhere.

She looks up to the sky and sees her patron. A mystical ball shrouded in mystery. She doesn't believe in it. Even as her own ghost scoffs at her for it, she can't bring herself to believe. She has no memory of her life before her ghost, and yet, she felt too old, too tired, too jaded, to believe in a god that would care about her. 

When she loses her light, during the Red War, she considers hiding. She saw a torn apart exo guardian when they fled the tower. But she doesn't feel fear.

She spots Banshee from across a group of refugees, and they make quick work of setting up a defense perimeter. And that was something she could believe in.

Violence has yet to disappoint her.

Banshee puts a tired hand on her shoulder, no matter that she was a foot taller than him, and that most days, he couldn't even remember who she was. But in that moment, he looks at her, and something feels right.

"Crush them" his voice was deeper and darker than ever, before he blinks owlish and leaves her as if he forgot she was even there.

She doesn't believe the Traveler and the light would ever come back to her, for her. So she follows the message of something that to her, felt like the word of God.

She almost prays as she sets out to kill the Cabal who dared attack those who sat underneath the Traveler's  _ holy _ shadow.


	12. Roses and Thorns

Penelope was given more freedom than all the past bodyguards and personal assistants. Some speculated on what she did to warrant such special treatment. None ever thought that her free time was just another type of work.

She knew every nook and cranny of the facility. She knew the support team that made their life on Europa easier. The cleaning staff might not like Dr. Bray, or his granddaughter, but they liked Penelope. And that's how she knew about everything on that frozen moon.

The scientists looked at her and only saw the part of her that was Clovis Bray's shadow, the violent arm of their benefactor. A thorn in their side. To the ones who were like her, the support staff that suffered the same derogatory stares from the science team, she was the one they trusted.

How many have she personally offered for the exo project? To those of little means, to have a chance at a higher life, was a dream. Death was not a deterrent. Death was just a big paycheck to send home.

How many came to her for help? How many begged to be part of the testing process? To some, death was the target.

For the common folk, Braytech was the future. Braytech was what put food on the table. Braytech was what paid for their families health insurance. For them, even those silly penguins were a boon.

Penelope calls her mother every Friday. She blows her a kiss. She asks after her sick father, who is almost as old Dr. Bray, but never had the means to be as strong and healthy as a rich man could.

Penelope sees their cat playing with the penguin she sent home, and she smiles.

"I love you, mother"

"And I love you, my little rose."

Penelope ends the call, and puts on her work coat, she walks the corridors of the facility, towering over the ones who look down on her. She is not little, and she is not a rose. She bares her teeth to the psychologist who speaks to her as if she was a child.

She enters Dr. Bray's office without knocking, and with a swoop, removes the coffee cup from his hand. He glares at her, but a glare was better than spending the whole week having to listen to him complain about the heartburn that one cup of coffee would cause to his delicate stomach. She bends down and places a tender kiss at the shell of his ear, he sneers at her but doesn't push her away.

Penelope was no rose. Roses have thorns. If anything, Penelope had teeth and claws, and a tenderness in her that could not be translated by a mere rose.

She helps Dr. Bray into his parka, and tucks a stray hair behind his ear. He tilts her head down and places a kiss upon her lips, a kiss that she knows has no meaning but to control her. It doesn't stop her from smiling at him, before following him out of the office, her impassive mask slipping back into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I have to add a Exo/Clovis Bray I tag to this now


	13. Night of The Hunter

Doctor Bray's medical frames circled him in his private surgery room in Clarity Control. He was too debilitated to make a choice. And the other Doctor Bray had a tendency to pretend her grandfather wasn't sick, that he wasn't dying.

The human staff was minimal nowadays. She had her transfer to an exo body almost an year ago. She had her first wipe and reset three months before.

Penelope-2 stands next to the skiff that housed Dr. Bray's body. He was still conscious, but in pain.

The medical frames around them all had the most advanced combat protocol, all in case of an emergency. The protocol was based on her own conscience. They were inferior copies of her, trained to be medical professionals.

"Penelope-2" the AI's voice booms on the comms. A shallow copy of the original.

Doctor Bray, Clovis, reaches out to her, his hand was frail, small and delicate against the hand of the exo body he built especially for her. 

"Pen" Clovis, for he is Clovis whenever he calls her that, practically cries in his skiff. He was scared.

Her maw opens and a static noise fills the room. She wants to cry for him. She wants to comfort him. She wants to kiss his mouth, no matter the blood. She wants to hold his thin body against her chest and soothes his fears. Penelope-2 cries inside the exo frame he made for her. Her frame was made for war, for battle, for violence. Not love.

Her dormant memory makes her think of her parents. Did her mother soothe her father while he died?

"Pen" he says again, and she bends forward, a bow to a dying king. His voice barely above a whisper. But she could hear him clearly. "Crush them"

Those were the last words he said to her, before she lowered the lid of the skiff, and followed protocol.

Doctor Bray enters the room, followed by the exo team, all ready to finalize the process of transference. Today, Clovis Bray I died, and Clovis I - 1 was born.

"Follow your orders." commands the AI, in the smallest voice, for  her ears only. " _ Crush them _ "

Her eyes shine a bright yellow, as Clovis Bray takes his last breath.


	14. Geometry of Power

Iliad was a strange Ghost. They knew that. Iliad did not care for guardians. They wanted knowledge, power, freedom. A guardian was an anchor. A guardian would only take Iliad's light for themselves. A guardian would use them.

Iliad was part of the cryptarcs. A scholar in their own right. They were respected by the ones that filled the cryptarc ranks. But Iliad knew that they could never be more. No guardian would respect a lonely ghost. No  _ ghost _ would respect them.

Iliad should be part of the Vanguard by themselves. They were smart, they were loyal. They were more than many guardian + ghost duo.

They go to Venus. To explore, to study. Their shell was a beautiful thing. The darknest black. Matte. Perfect for exploring. No fallen, nor vex could spot or capture them.

Iliad always thought that their shape was the actual shape of power. The geometry of their all present Traveler. A shard of Their shining will.

Until he sees her. One exo. A body so big that it spilled out of the emergency pod that kept them from the elements. A crown of moss and leaves around her head. Matte black. No one could've spotted her.

"Guardian"

They do not share their light. They don't have to.

Iliad shines on her, and she surges to life. It's almost as if they are one. No taking. No giving. Just being.

A noise, a terrible noise surges out of her. A wail of static. The painful cry of an untold lost.

"Guardian!"

Iliad screams as the noise grows louder. Vex come pouring down around them. Almost as if they've been waiting.

A fire burns so bright that the hull of the emergency pod turns angry red. The moss that covered her, a fire halo, as the taters that covered her body burn.

Iliad could rush to help. To guide. To soothe. But Iliad hides. Iliad hides. And Iliad watches.

A vortex of fire forms around her, a vortex that sucks the vex into her twitching hands. Iliad sees her reach into their raidolarian stomachs, to tear the vex appart. The arc charged fluid seams to inject life into her.

That is what power looks like.

That exo was anything but human. The body was easily a head taller than any other exo they have ever seen. An amorphous body.

Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen.

Her mind screamed. It was their mind. Their joint mind.

Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen. Pen.

Her fire burns everything around her, viciously, mercilessly. 

"Pen?" they ask. But there is no answer. Maybe that was the lock, and not the key.

"Guardian?"

They try again. And bright yellow eyes turn to them. Twin suns. The brightest star.

Iliad though they knew power. But to see her, was to see the sun for the first time.

"Eyes up, guardian"


End file.
